TOO BAD; IT COULD HAVE BEEN DONE SO MUCH BETTER

NEW CULVER'S RESTAURANT IN ASHLAND

WITH THE DRIVE-THRUOGH ON LAKE SIDE OF BUILDING...

...IGNORING A MILLION DOLLAR VIEW OF LAKE SUPERIOR'S CHEQUAMEGON BAY

Tuesday, 8:30 AM.  2 degrees F, wind N, calm with moderate gusts.  The sky was overcast and foggy but has begun to clear and it appears it will be a partly cloudy day.  The humidity is 77% and the barometer is still falling, presently at 30.01".  The forecast is for bitter cold through Thursday with some warming on next weekend and then more cold.
   The Ashland Daily Press reports that over 2800 skiers, snowshoers and runners participated in last Saturday's "Book Across The Bay" night time event on the ice of Lake Superior.  Brrrr.
   We "got out of Dodge" (Bayfield) yesterday long enough to go to Ashland to do some necessary shopping.  That gave us an opportunity to take a closer look at the new Culver's fast-food restaurant just now opening on Ashland's lake front.  Culver's considers itself a cut-above most other fast-food drive-through restaurants,  and it is a chain that we often stop at while traveling in the Mid West.  I would have hoped that they would have been more sensitive to the lake front site, and built a structure more in harmony with its' lake front environment.  No such luck.
   This building is evidently a corporate cookie cutter design simply dropped onto the lake front site.  The site has a "million dollar view" of the Big Lake's Chequamegon Bay, and I rather expect the cost of the land reflected the value of the view.  However, rather than build a restaurant that respected the esthetics of a special site, one which would have given restaurant customers a proper view of the lake as they ate, the chain chose to have a standard design imposed on that site, with drive-through customers brought around the lake side of the building in a constant stream of vehicles to order and pick up their food, with no consideration being given to the rather special view that could be enjoyed in a number of relaxing ways by customers.
   Now, corporations are free to spend their design and construction budget any way they wish, no matter how grossly inappropriate and un-esthetic I or any other private citizen may think it to be.  So the greater question is, where were the Ashland architectural review and zoning boards while the approval process was going on?   Either asleep at the switch, or driving through McDonalds or some other local fast food venue.
   I am not an Ashland resident so I guess I have no legal right to complain about the monstrosity that has been built on its lake front.  But I am a resident of the Chequamegon Bay region, and have every right to  voice my dismay that  there is yet another long-term eye sore ensconced on its beautiful shores.
   Too bad; it could have been done so much better.